a foreigner's god

bancroft estate | january

Neville lay awake, the bright moonlight washing over the cottage and draping the otherwise perfect darkness. From the living area, the fireplace crackled quietly. It had only a few lingering embers that were blood red in color, one by one flickering off and melting into the bed of soot. Despite the serenity of it all, he couldn't draw himself to sleep— a common problem, and not just as of late.

Pulling himself up to his elbows, he let out an exasperated sigh. He glanced to the clock that he only just noticed was crooked where it was fixed on the wall, but couldn't quite make out the time. Decidedly not morning. He would fix that tomorrow, he told himself, before resigning again.

Tea might help.

Neville flicked his wrist and put the kettle on, pulling a throw over his shoulders as he made his way down the old wooden floors, footsteps padded by wool socks. As he waited, he studied outside the cottage from the window above the sink— fresh snowfall had blanketed the earth sometime between when he had first laid down and the present. And the greenhouse was alive, all lights on.

"Merlin's sake," He groaned, flicking off the kettle and rushing to pull on a coat and step clumsily into his work boots. Bancroft was prone to the little jaunts in the middle of the night, however, Neville had grown increasingly concerned about leaving him there to his own devices for too long. One morning he found the man wandering around up the road, a ways away from home and entirely lost.

"Bancroft...?" Neville pushed through the door of the greenhouse and it croaked closed behind him. He could hear rummaging around from somewhere but couldn't see the man.

@Fosse

Benedict Bancroft

He couldn't sleep.

That was the trouble with being old (and he was old now, no use in denying it if there were grandchildren about) -- the bones knew it too and were taking the time now in his sunset days to punish him for past crimes. The days of kneeling in the dirt and digging for hours and hours hadn't hurt much then, just the occasional soreness, but now the aches woke him, drove him to get up and stretch and move his blood around liver-spotted legs in the wee hours. 

Even when he was young, it had never been easy for Benedict to get back to sleep, once awakened. He shuffled out of bed, slipping into a robe over his flannel pyjamas and into his slippers. He gave his wife a quick kiss on the head before leaving -- Melete, bless her, could sleep through anything. Had slept through a cyclone, once, notably, when they were newlywed and camping in the American prairies on a field expedition.

The thought of those days was tinged with angry regret. Of course, that thought lingered. Of course, he could remember those rejections like it was yesterday, and not the name of his grandchildren when they were standing in front of him.

Benedict scowled and swept out the door towards the greenhouse.

He knew his mind was failing, distantly, in his moments of lucidity. Other Bancroft men had gone this route before, some with more dignity than others. Benedict's own father had been one of the more painful ones to watch in his final days. Benedict tried not to think about it. The most important parts still worked -- the instincts to eat, shit, breathe, and drink. The encyclopedia of knowledge accrued on plants was mostly intact.

(He was writing it all down, finally, just in case.)

The enchanted lights in the greenhouse brightened as he entered, tracking snow into the carefully maintained warmth of this building. Someone had been in here, he couldn't remember who. The mandrake pots had been moved, as had the last of the dittany, and the paths between the rows had been carefully raked. Benedict frowned. Was that him?

No matter -- he could see some buds forming on the stem of the wartizomes and that was much more interesting. They were in the back, sheltered behind the shade of a few shrubby plants. Benedict knelt down, knees cracking, and pulled the woody stem towards him , rubbing the bud between his fingertips.

"Bancroft?" came a voice from the door. Benedict frowned. "Young men need their sleep," he said, not getting up from his spot but shifting, in a little crablike walk, to look at the next wartizome over. "You should be in bed." He peered through the leaves at Neville, watery-blue eyes blinking. "Ach, but come here then. The wee ones are budding."

The familiar cancerous feeling of irrational fear crept up Neville's chest and to his throat before he swallowed it back down. It was Bancroft, surely, but then again—

The man's voice as it called out from the back of the greenhouse was a relief, though, despite the fact that Neville had already convinced himself that he had truly believed it all along.

"Some might argue that old men need it more..." The statement was good-natured and spoken with a genuine smile that contorted his whole face, pink from the cold outside. Neville was halfway through shrugging off his winter coat when the invitation was extended. He hadn't intended on going anywhere, anyway.

"Are they?" He carefully hung up his coat and brushed the snow from his boots before following the path of melted footsteps that proved his mentor to have not been so polite. "I thought they might be, they looked ready this morning," Neville picked up the pace happily as he neared where Bancroft was crouched before the wartizomes.

"Beautiful..." He thought distractedly as he bent forward, holding out his tingling fingers that were returning to life from the numbness to roll one of the buds carefully between them in quiet appreciation. "Brighter than the last, aren't they?" Neville glanced over to Bancroft for reassurance.

Benedict Bancroft

"Bah," said Bancroft, his voice rough with too much cold air and not enough water since suppertime. "At my age, you can't sleep even when you want to. Your bones get too comfortable, think they're practicing for the long one." His joke amuses Bancroft, at any rate. He lets out a low chuckle, shuffling over in another sidestep to make room for Neville.

Ah, so Longbottom had noticed the bulbs lightening in colour this morning. Bancroft was impressed - it was a marginal colour shift, one that had taken him a few seasons to really understand. "Good eye, boy," he said, less stingy with his praise at midnight than he was during the day. And they were brighter than the last batch, more of a white undertone than the typical pale yellow to the nascent petals. "Yes," Bancroft confirmed, running his own calloused thumb over the tips of the petals. "Wee bit brighter. So the roots will likely be a little more potent."

He could have quizzed young Longbottom with that -- would have, if it were daylight. But crouched here, the urge to test and test and test the young man was less pressing.

Bancroft's eyes slid over to Neville, looking at him with a new light in his eyes. Ach, if only any of his own children had Neville's eye for the plants! Or, Merlin, the passion. He would have taken either, gladly, in his own progeny.

"What's good in here for rest and sleep, then?" Right, so Bancroft was quizzing Neville again, but his tone was different -- less of the bark of the questions he asked during working hours, more gentle. "If ye wanted to send an old codger to bed."

"Of course," Neville nodded by default. It was a joke, and he could go along with a joke. He made his way over to Bancroft with a sheepish smile despite the heat that rose up in his cheeks effectively indicating otherwise. There was an unsettling comfort that came with the man's nonchalance as it pertained to life after death. Acceptance, was it?

He was thankful they had moved onto a safer topic of conversation— the plants. Very much alive, and very much quiet when it came to the intricacies of the fragility of the world they inhabited. They were so much easier to understand.

The deep greens of his eyes that were laden with sleep followed to where the man had indicated to the color of the petals, eventually dropping to the where he knew the roots were settled deep in the dirt. "Hm," He added little and instead made an eager mental note of the new fact. Often, he figured he should have a notebook around Bancroft at all times.

It took a moment for Neville to realize the question was directed to him, and he took a moment to recount it, visibly caught off guard. "Wha—" He ran a hand through tufts of chestnut hair that was disheveled from his tossing and turning and canvased the greenhouse. "For sleep?" The question was rhetorical, he knew exactly what Bancroft had asked of him.

Neville stood upright and straightened up in thought. "Well..." He thought out loud as he meandered slightly on the heels of his boots. Sleeping draught was the obvious answer, and any wizard who had taken standard potions knew the ingredients off by heart—

Of course.

Neville made his way over to a tall shelf of purple vines that had grown down the side of a tree like a knotted rope. A similar family to lavender, but much more potent. "Somnum," He raised a hand but didn't touch the minuscule bulbs of life. "Crushed with a bit of nettle... would put even the most practiced insomniac on their back," Neville turned back to Bancroft with a satisfied but sleepy smile.

Benedict Bancroft

Longbottom was blushing as he ambled over. Benedict thought about making another joke, about how he would remember to ease on the death jokes around the sensitive young man. Course, that was a whole other barrel of composting worms -- both he and Neville knew Bancroft wasn't the best at remembering things, these days.

Sleepy boy, Neville was, but eager and had no complaints about a midnight lesson in the dirt. Benedict studied the boy's face as Neville looked around the greenhouse. Bit of a nose. Big ears. Not near as handsome as some of his own children, sure, but more handsome than some of the others. And he was wasting his youth running around after him? "Bah," rasped Bancroft under his breath, in reply to no question.

He didn't praise Neville for getting passing the test, just grunted. "Mm." He straightened up, dusting some dirt off the shins of his trousers.  "Weeell, bring some in, then. We'll make tea, have a late start of it tomorrow." There was dried nettle in the main kitchen, and dried somnum too, but the fresh stuff was better. Always better. Bancroft nodded, self-sastified. "Come, come."

Hands clasped behind his back, Benedict ambled forward to the front of the greenhouse. At the door he looked back expectantly, waiting for Neville to open the door for them both. Well, if Neville was going to be here and not dallying about with women, he should at least dote on an old man with feather-light bones. Bancroft tilted his head as Neville caught up -- he didn't look unlike Charles, and Merlin knew Charles would sooner die than try to rekindle any old thing like that. "Hmm," said Bancroft, to nobody in particular.

Neville knew better than to believe that Bancroft would be overly impressed with his answer, assuming he had been correct. And it appeared he had. One quick glance to the man who was slowly making his way to his feet told him as much. He had that particular look on his face, nowhere near satisfied, but not quite disappointed either. It was strange, the nuances that Neville had picked up spending so much time with Bancroft over the last few years. Even stranger as his mind went.

"Right," Neville fumbled with a vial, steadying himself against the knotted vines that seemed to be breathing with him. The deep purple of the bulbs pulsed to a light lavender as he ran his fingers carefully over their stems, removing a few bulbs with gentle precision. The moment they were in the vial, he closed the top as to not let any of the potency out.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw new bulbs spring to life in their place. It was a good sign for the health of the plant. It was thriving there. Happy.

Pleased with himself, Neville picked up the pace to where Bancroft was not so patiently waiting at the door. "Your hat, Bancroft" He reminded the man to his back as he shuffled out into the snow toward the main house. At least he hadn't left his shoes or anything more vital. Neville gently handed over the knitted cap and followed to the main house, the light from the kitchen windows peeking out through the darkness of night.

"Melete asleep?" Neville kept his voice down as they stepped inside, immediately met with a warmth that stung his numbing cheeks. Shuffling the snow off his shoes, the wizard shrugged off his coat that had started to feel more suffocating than not, placing it gingerly on the loaded coat rack.

Your hat, Bancroft. His hat? Benedict blinked owlishly at the knit cap, not recognizing Melete's handiwork for too long a moment. "Oh, yes." His hat. He grasped at the wool with thick, arthritic fingers, curled into it with a fist that didn't quite close. "Hm."

The walk back was familiar -- the bones remembered, even if the mind was occasionally taken aback, when what should be a sapling was a great young tree towering over them. The snow crunched under his boots, muffling their tromping and breathing. Neville didn't try to talk, and neither did Benedict. The night air nipped at his cheeks, turning them red. Somewhere a branch cracked, some nocturnal creature roaming the grounds. This was all the conversation they needed -- nature and them, her witness.

"Aye," Bancroft said, his voice low but not so soft, just a few decibels below his usual volume. His robe was damp, slightly -- he frowned at it, shrugged it off and tossed it on the back of a chair. It was warm in here, but it could be warmer. Bancroft blew into his aching hands, whispering an incantation. The fireplace didn't roar to life, but it sparked, once, twice, then flickered into a steady warmth. In his youth, when magic coursed through him as easy as blood, this would have been an easy enough wandless spell. Bancroft had only ever gotten one or two, but firemaking seemed key when camping.

Now he had to dig deep, and it winded him.

Bancroft slumped into a chair, looking up at Neville expectantly with watery grey eyes. "Put the kettle on, then, you know where the nettle be." He drummed some feeling back into his fingers on the tabletop. "You ever been to Germany, lad?"

Anticipating the flame in the fireplace, Neville watched cautiously as it flickered slowly to life. Eventually, the whole thing was emblazoned in deep oranges and hints of yellow-white at the tips and unevenly crackling. He glanced over at the man after a moment of being transfixed to see that he was looking back at him expectedly as if he'd asked a question that Neville hadn't heard. No surprise there, the wizard thought to himself with a faint smile.

"Right," He nodded, only shaking his head after he shuffled on his heels toward where he knew the kettle was tucked neatly away (Melete's handiwork), using his want to flick it on as he crouched down to the cabinets of herbs. He squinted at the labels with some difficulty, in search of the nettle in the dimly lit kitchen.

Had he ever been to Germany? Neville twisted a vial to the position he found it in before looking back over his shoulder to Bancroft. It was out of the blue, as most things were with the man, but he seemed lucid. It was always obvious when his mind had gone somewhere else, and this was not one of those times. "I've—" He had to stop and think about it. "—once, when I was a kid," He recalled, though the details evaded him.

"Why do you ask?" He asked as he finally stood up, nettle in hand. Did he want to know, he wondered. Neville's wand was at the ready, packaging the herb into little bags that he would mix with the Somnum from the greenhouse— for both of them. Benedict wasn't the only one who had trouble sleeping, after all. 

When he was a wee lad, Neville said, stammered and hesitant. Bancroft frowned. Not that he had kept up with Augusta nor Algernon Longbottom much after his own boyhood, but Augusta certainly never seemed the traveling type. His grasp on time wasn't the strongest these days, but Benedict was fairly certain Neville hadn't gone off on holiday with his own parents. He pressed his lips together. "Whereabouts?"

Bancroft settled deeper into the armchair, watching Neville with watery eyes as he put together the drink. "We've got clients all over the Continent," he said after a moment, one arthritic finger pointed up into the air. "And some things cannae be sent by post. Or, they could, but the insurance." Bancroft let himself have a little roll of the eyes at that. "Meant to bring some Mel to Arden next week. You should do that one."

He waited patiently for Neville to bring him the drink, watching the light flicker over the young man's features. He hadn't sent Neville long-distance yet; for a war-hero, the lad seemed less than sure of himself. But it was high time Longbottom went alone and off the Isles. And if Charles wasn't going to win that lovely girl back -- well. Benedict looked Neville once over. Strapping lad, though a bit skinny, held himself like he was still round in the face. He would like Arden, Bancroft thought. And Arden would like him.

The fire flickered, threatening to die -- Bancroft pointed his wand at it threateningly. "Oi," he muttered, and the flames roared back to life. "Mel should be ready to ship in three day's time." It wasn't really a request -- just a softly spoken order.

"Hamburg, I think..." Neville's green eyes flicked up to the ceiling and focused on the deep, warm-colored tiles from basking in the subtle firelight.  "Er— thereabouts," He decided, delicately placing the bags of tea and herbs before pouring the boiling water, careful to fill their mugs too close to the rim. "It was with my great-uncle, for work," Neville thought out loud as if Bancroft really needed to know the full details of the long-gone weekend trip he could hardly even access in his memories.

He glanced over his shoulder to where the man had continued to explain why Germany had even come up in the first place. Hand delivery of the product? His heart leapt pathetically at the mere idea that Bancroft trusted him enough with that kind of venture. His eyes narrowed for a moment before turning back to the mugs, taking them in either hand and placing the man's before him on the table (not directly to his hand).

"Yeah, okay," There was a failed attempt to hide the smile growing on his face. It seemed that the job was less of a request and more of an expectation. "Arden?" He wondered as he sat adjacent to Bancroft, facing him. He wrapped both hands around the mug of tea and held them there to warm them up. "I'll organize a portkey for us..." Neville meandered again through his own internal thoughts, assuming that Bancroft would be joining him for the drop-off.

Ah, so good old Algie, then. Bancroft had always gotten on with that sibling best, though knowing what he knew about Neville's youth Bancroft kept from bringing it up. "Hm," muttered Bancroft. "S'ppose I best show you the drop point by side-along, first, then." It was quieter, this, half to himself. "Or call that American lad, the one that does the portkeys. Get one set up."

He wondered how much of this he would remember in the morning -- it seemed rude to ask Neville to remind him, but Melete was asleep and Bancroft had no desire to reach for a quill at this hour. Bancroft bobbed his head at the lad, curling one arthritic hand around the hand of the mug but not yet lifting it to his mouth. It was filled right to the rim, the surface of the tea still steaming. Bancroft blew on his gently.

"Arden, yes, haven't you met yet?" Bancroft stared at Neville for a moment, blinking his watery-blue eyes slowly. "She teaches at Cernunnos, studies aquatic creatures." Lovely girl, was on the tip of his tongue, stilled only by the first sip of tea. "A good connection for you, should you ever want to do your own research." Bancroft peered over the edge of his mug at Neville. "Do you want to do the academic route, lad?"

For us, Neville said quietly. "Ach, for you, lad," Bancroft corrected. "I cannae make it, I have grandchildren to go see." He grinned, taking another sip of tea and then stretching out his arms. "Otherwise I'd do it meself. "

"Ah, right, Charles'—" Neville had picked up on the name a moment too late, as per usual. Arden was an ex of one of Bancroft's sons and was highly spoken of from as far as he had seen, by proxy. There was a table— or was it a chair?— she had made that they were always raving about. "We didn't meet, no," He realized belatedly that it might have been a sore subject to bring up the ex of it all.

As a means to shut himself up, Neville blew the steam from his tea before taking a sip, scalding himself in the process.

"Dunno," Was all he could get out as he tried to cool the roof of his mouth with his own breath. "Maybe...," It had been something he considered, of course, but he figured he was too early in his career to have any real say as far as the direction was concerned. "In a few years," he added, suddenly aware he was talking to the person who currently employed him— as if Bancroft would mind.

Neville nearly spat out the next mouthful of tea. Bancroft trusted him, alone, to make the delivery, all the way to Germany. "Oh, I—" He cleared his throat and shifted in the seat, ready to talk him out of it without even trying. "Are you sure?" He croaked after another breath, clearly mystified.

Neville and Arden hadn't met yet. "No time like the present t' correct that, then," Bancroft said, with a touch of self-satisfied cheer. The way Neville leaned into his son's name wasn't lost on Bancroft, but he didn't mind it. There was lots to love about each of his and Melete's children, yes, but lots to criticize too, and no shame in calling spades spades when they were. Charles was good at many things -- keeping interesting women interested in him wasn't one of them.

Bancroft lifted one fuzzy eyebrow in vague amusement, watching Neville try not to let the pain from the too-hot tea show. Bancroft tapped his wand on the table, summoning a small saucer of ice from the icebox. He dropped one cube in his own tea (the hard palate of his own mouth had taken a beating from years of sipping too soon, and so he didn't quite need it, but still) and let it melt as a demonstration to his student.


Maybe, said Neville, with cautious deference. "Maybe?" Bancroft frowned now. "What you afraid of, students? Or asking new questions with no answer key?" It was one of the things Hogwarts seemed to fail at, after he had left faculty -- teaching questioning, teaching critical thinking, teaching curiousity. He couldn't fault Neville for that, nor Pomona -- they had been under some duress, after all.

Neville spluttered across from him. Bancroft tapped one knobby finger against his mug. "Course I am, lad. You've worked here long enough, and I'm planning to get lazy in me old age."

The distraction of the burn on the roof of his mouth dissipated as he considered Bancroft's question; why not? He ran his newly numbed tongue over it in thought. "Erm, both," He sputtered a laugh that moved his posture. Kids at any age were more intimidating as he got old. More so when he was the same age. Eventually he looked up from where he'd been grinning stupidly at his hands that edged around the mug.

"How are you meant to be a teacher if you're still learning, I mean," It was a question to himself and to his mentor.

Someone like Bancroft seemed to have it figured out. The man had a real way with teaching. He knew exactly when to step away and let the student make their own discoveries. At least, seemingly. There was no doubt there had been countless times that he steered Neville in the direction of the right path, but never in a way that felt obvious. On the contrary, he seemed to challenge Neville's theories the most. Put them to the test.

He watched fondly as Bancroft confirmed his faith in Neville. "Lazier," He corrected, feeling bold from the boost of pride.